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A59814 A discourse concerning the divine providence by William Sherlock ... Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. 1694 (1694) Wing S3286; ESTC R8109 271,248 406

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cover the Mountain had heard the Thunder and the Trumpet and at last a Voice delivering the Law with an unimitable Terror and Majesty what would they then have thought of this Or what farther evidence would they have desired that it was God who spoke to them This could be no Dream nor melancholy Apparition or disturbed Fancy for they had timely notice of it three days before and were commanded to sanctify themselves to meet their God and if a whole Nation had been imposed on after such fair Warning it had been as great a Prodigy and Miracle as the Appearance on Mount Sinai and would have argued some Divine and Supernatural Infatuation and that would have proved a God This then was as visible a Demonstration as could be given of the Presence and Power and Majesty of God who rejected all other gods from any share in his Worship and declares himself to be the Maker of Heaven and Earth for I 'm sure the Wit of man cannot invent a more effectual Conviction than this Let us then consider the Wisdom of Providence in this both with respect to the Israelites and to the rest of Mankind He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him And therefore when God intended to restore his own Worship again in the world and to make Israel a Pattern and Example of it to the rest of Mankind it was necessary to give them as visible and ocular a demonstration of the Power and Glory of God as it was possible for Creatures to have When the whole World was over-run with Idolatry and the Israelites themselves so strongly inclined to it nothing less than such an Appearance from Mount Sinai was likely to establish the Faith and Worship of the One Supreme God and we see that this it self could very hardly do it for immediately after they had heard God speak to them while Moses was in the Mount they made them a Golden Calf and worshipped it and as soon as they mingled with any other people they joined in their Idolatrous Worship a sad Example of which we have in their worship of Baal Peor 25. Numb But this was the highest evidence God could then give them of his Power and Glory and it did in time prevail and in them all Mankind who know their Story have a visible demonstration of One Supreme God But not to insist on every Particular which would be endless it may seem strange that when God brought Israel out of Egypt to give them Possession of the Promised Land he should make them wander in the Wilderness forty years till all that generation of men which came out of Egypt were dead excepting Ioshua and Caleb The Apostle to the Hebrews gives us the general Account of this matter 3. Heb. 7. to the end which resolves it into their Idolatry and Infidelity Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my works forty years Wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said They do alway err in their heart and they have not known my ways so I sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Which he makes an admonition to Christians Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God that is in forsaking the True God and declining to Idolatry as the Israelites in the Wilderness did And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest but to them that believed not So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief The plain state of the Case is this That Generation of men which came out of Egypt and remembred the Customs and Practices of that People were so strangely addicted to Idolatry that all the Signs and Wonders they saw in Egypt in the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness could not perfectly cure them but whenever they had opportunity they joined themselves to the Heathen gods ate of their Sacrifices and bowed themselves before them that had these men gone into Canaan which was then a Land of Idolaters they would certainly have worshipped their gods instead of destroying them and have mingled themselves with the People of the Land and have learnt their Manners for they who so often tempted God and disobeyed Moses while they were in the Wilderness in expectation of the Promised Land what would they have done had they been once possessed of it So that to have given that Generation of men Possession of Canaan would not have answered God's orginal Design in chusing Israel for his peculiar People for in all likelihood they would have proved a Nation of Idolaters like the other Nations round about them And therefore God deferred the final Accomplishment of his Promise till that Generation was all dead and a new Generation sprung up which knew not Egypt nor had conversed with Idolatrous Nations but had seen the Wonders of God in the Wilderness and had learnt his Statutes and Judgments and were sufficiently warned by the Example of their Fathers whose Carcasses fell in the Wilderness to fear and reverence the Lord Iehovah and to make him their Trust. This is the very Account the Scripture gives of it and thus accordingly it proved for that new Generation of men were never charged with Idolatry but we are expresly told That Israel served the Lord all the days of Ioshua and all the days of the Elders that overlived Ioshua and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel 24. Josh. 31. All this we see was designed by God with admirable Wisdom to make his own Glory and Power known and to publish his Choice of Israel for his peculiar People and to prepare them for himself and to establish his Name and Worship among them And now God had made them fit Inhabitants of the Land of Promise without any longer delay he gives them the actual Possession of it and therefore let us now follow them into the Land of Canaan The History of the Wars of Canaan is sufficiently known which presents us with new Wonders and Miracles not inferior to those which God wrought in Egypt and in the Red Sea for God so visibly fought the Battels of Israel that they and all the world might know that it was he that gave them possession of that good Land and drove out those wicked Inhabitants before them which declared his Glory and made his Power known And what I have already discoursed concerning the Wonders and Miracles in Egypt is equally applicable to this and I need add no more Let us then consider Israel in possession of the Land of Promise And there are but two things more I shall observe in the Iewish History till the coming of our Saviour 1. Their frequent